Gently Instrumental by Alan Hunter Page B

recognized him.’
    ‘Yes, I did.’ Her flush deepened. ‘We all know Leonard – Mummy, Daddy. He’s been a friend of ours for years.’
    ‘It was Leonard Meares – down to his clothes.’
    ‘If you like, I can describe them. They were plain in my headlights – a light grey jacket, dark slacks and sandals. Now try to tell me it wasn’t him!’
    Gently didn’t try to tell her. He leaned against the plinth of the war memorial and listened for a moment to the bustle of the church.
    ‘Had Virtue no friends in your little group?’
    Miss Hazlewood was regarding him pinkly. She had picked up a prayer book from the shelf and was riffling the pages with her thumb. She sat very straight. Her small, light body looked almost like a child’s in the vastness of the pew.
    ‘Of course he didn’t.’ Her voice was cross. ‘People like that don’t have friends.’
    ‘Still, you’d been rehearsing for several weeks. He couldn’t have been offensive all the time.’
    ‘Nobody liked him, just the same.’
    ‘He was tolerated because of Mr Hozeley.’
    She stubbed the hassock. ‘More or less. Though naturally, we tried to keep things smooth.’
    ‘I can imagine the doctor viewing him with detachment.’
    ‘Oh yes . . . Uncle Henry. Terry was a clinical case to him, he rather enjoyed having him around.’ She punished the hassock. ‘Tom couldn’t stand him, and I found it hard to be polite. Leonard did his best, but even he had to make a stand on Tuesday.’
    ‘Before that he’d tried to ingratiate Virtue?’
    She frowned and toyed with the prayer book. ‘Leonard’s a gentleman, of course, he’s nice to everyone. But sometimes I felt he went too far.’
    Gently said smoothly: ‘Virtue was homosexual. He probably needed an effusive approach. More as though he were a girl than a man. Isn’t that the sort of thing you mean?’
    ‘Yes – that’s precisely it! I expect that’s why it seemed overdone.’
    ‘Mr Meares may have judged more shrewdly than yourself.’
    ‘He saw Terry as a girl . . . yes, that would explain it.’ She sat prodding the hassock yet further, her eyes wide and suddenly absent. The prayer book, a limp-covered edition, was curled almost double in her grasp.
    ‘And Terry . . . he’d react like a girl with anyone.’
    ‘The doctor believes he was bisexual.’
    ‘I mean, if he met another young man he’d be attracted and might make a pass.’
    Gently paused. ‘Do you know such a person?’
    ‘No . . . I was thinking of a joke of Leonard’s. Once, when Terry and Walt weren’t hitting it off, Leonard said they must have quarrelled about the gardener. Everyone laughed, including me. But I didn’t really get the point at the time.’
    ‘The gardener – David Crag?’
    ‘Yes, young Dave. Oh, but Leonard wasn’t being serious! They were always joking about Terry and Walt – and waiters and choir boys. You know.’
    ‘A form of wit that appealed to Mr Meares.’
    ‘Well . . . Leonard does have a dry sense of humour.’ She reddened. ‘He – he can be whimsical. But there’s never any offence in it.’
    ‘And – on Tuesday – there was joking of this sort?’
    ‘Good lord no.’ Her chin came up. ‘Nobody was joking then, I can tell you. It was plain from the start that something was up.’
    ‘A tense atmosphere . . .’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Brought at last to a head by Mr Meares.’
    ‘Yes – someone had to say something! And Uncle Henry wasn’t taking the lead.’
    ‘Thank you, Miss Hazlewood.’
    She stared in surprise. ‘I can go now?’
    ‘You may go.’
    She hesitated, then rose clumsily, fumbling the prayer book back on its shelf. The loudspeakers chose that moment to boom and behind the memorial someone coughed.
    They picked their way down the cluttered church and emerged into the shade of the limes. While they were absent a banner had gone up: Moura Lympany plays Beethoven. Beyond the church stretched a park-like graveyard uniformly set with grey, pointed-topped